Former Aviation Minister Femi Fani-Kayode has expressed regret for his alleged military coup comment, in which he claimed that the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, was secretly meeting with Nigerian Army generals.
He expressed regret for his actions and stated that he should have been more circumspect in his comments on such sensitive national security issues.
Fani-Kayode stated this at a press conference on Monday, shortly after being grilled by Department of State Security (DSS) operatives in Abuja.
According to the APC Presidential Council member and Director of New Media, he did not accuse anyone, but rather raised questions about alleged meetings between the PDP presidential candidate and military chiefs.
He insisted that his motivation for raising the alarm was to ensure that the authorities were on top of their game and that Atiku was being investigated.
“I was subjected to very thorough grilling, they were inquisitive and it was very professional, at the same time I must say they were polite, reasonable, and rational,” Fani-Kayode said of his experience with DSS. Despite the ordeal, I felt I was treated fairly and was not oppressed. They were not following orders from the Peoples Democratic Party.”
During the investigation, he stated that he realized his position regarding a phantom coup plot by anyone was untenable and regrettable.
He stated that he agreed with his interrogators that he should have sought clarification through the back channels available to him rather than resorting to social media. He admitted that his actions gave credibility to otherwise unfounded fake news.
According to him
“Sometimes we need to be circumspect because the medium that issued that statement was faceless and of course when I say something on my Twitter handle, it is the whole world that is listening and apparently what I said sent shock waves in a lot of places and some people were really hurt. And I think it is regrettable, and it was a mistake. And I was the first to acknowledge that when things are not done in the right way.”
“On the issue of being circumspect, sometimes when you are at a warfront, your decision and judgement sometimes become jaundiced by what is referred to as fog of war. In other words in a struggle or fight.
“And this is a fight, it is a war, politics is a war by other means. So all of us are in a middle of a war.
“You may say the right thing at the wrong time and wrong thing at the right time, if there’s anything like that. Look, nobody is infallible, nobody is infallible the most important thing is you learn from your mistakes. When it comes to national security, we all need to be exceptionally careful.”